Candle Light
by Grav
Summary: In which Glorfindel learns there are certain times certain tales should go untold.


AN: This is a very alarming deviation from the story I am currently working on, but hey, when inspiration strikes, I'll take it and run.  The line in "The Hunt" that inspired this is the one about Elladan and the Balrog.

Disclaimer: You can fit everything I own about LotR into a quark, and still have room for a dabo table or two.  I am such a geek.

Summary: In which Glorfindel learns that there are some times certain tales should go untold.

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~Candle Light~

"No _Ada_," the child begged. "Leave it."

"Elrohir, my son, when you are asleep you cannot see the candle light," Elrond explained. "What purpose can leaving it on serve?"

"I. . .I don't know," the boy admitted. "But please!  You could come back for it after I have fallen asleep."

"Very well," Elrond conceded.  His son was undoubtedly a charmer. "Through I do not understand why you suddenly cannot sleep without a light at your bedside."

Elrond pulled the coverlet over his son's form, and smiled down at him.  There was something in his eyes, besides the charm that Elrond had a sneaking suspicion would return to haunt them all, that the Elf Lord did not understand.  It had bee, he reflected, a great while since he himself had been so young.

The door opened softly to admit Elrond's eldest, though only by a few moments, son.  Elladan and Elrohir shared a room not of necessity, for the halls at Imladris were many, but by choice.  It was a choice their father well understood.  Even now, after all these years, and despite being married, Elrond would still wake in the night feeling that something was amiss, only to emerge from the dream haze to remember that Elros had been gone for years.

Elrond lifted Elladan into bed, and tucked him in.  With a loving smile, Elrond bid both of his sons goodnight, and headed for the door.

"_Ada_, the candle," came the light voice of Elladan. "Oughten't you put it out or take it with you?"

"Elrohir has asked me to leave it," Elrond said, trying not to sound too patronizing. "It will burn itself out.  Do not worry."

But Elladan had sat up in bed, and was looking at his brother with a horrified and mystified expression.

"You would leave flame in our room while we slept?" he asked, aghast. "You know that is where it comes from."

"But there are other flames, toron nin," Elrohir pointed out. "This way if it materializes elsewhere, and creates a ruckus, we will be able to see it by candle light as soon as we awake."

"We will see it anyway! It's made of fire," Elladan said. "_Ada_, please put it out!"

The twins began to clamour, and Elrond regarded them both with bemusement for several seconds before stepping in to restore some semblance of order.

"My sons, please, calm yourselves," he sat down on the foot of Elrohir's bed and looked at them solemnly. "What is this 'it' of which you speak, and why is the candle suddenly of such importance?"

The twins exchanged a long look.  Elrond could not bear to watch them.  Though his bonds with his family were strong, he still felt a keen emptiness where Elros was not, and the feeling always hit him with renewed strength when the twins communicated by means of their sibling bond.  Finally, Elladan spoke.

"Well, _Ada_," he began tremulously. "There is a daemon in the fire."

"An ancient devilry," Elrohir cut in, nodding.

Elrond looked up from his study of the embroidery on the coverlet and at them with a blank expression on his face.  Elladan took the look as one of complete incomprehension, and so he continued to explain.

"You see, _Ada_, it lives in the shadow beneath the mountains."

"And we live in the shadow of a mountain."

"And it can come into Fire and become large and destroy things."

"So that is why Elladan doesn't want the candle.  He thinks that the daemon will get him in his sleep."

"And Elrohir wants the candle because it could just as easily come into one of the torches, and he doesn't want the daemon to catch him in the dark."

Elrond gazed into four wide, sincere eyes.  And it suddenly occurred to him that he knew what his sons were so afraid of.

"My sons, who has told you about the Balrog?" The word produced an instant reaction from both boys as they flew out of their beds and into their father's arms.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," Elrond told them once he had got back wind enough to talk.

They loosed their grip somewhat, and looked up at their father.

"To begin with, my sons, a Balrog cannot simply manifest itself in any fire it chooses.  And furthermore, there happens to dwell in Rivendell an Elf of great power who once slayed. . ." he paused, understanding completely at last.

Lord Elrond set both boys on Elrohir's bed, and knelt before them.

"Do you know what this is my son?" he asked them, holding out his hand.

"Yes _Ada_," Elladan said in an awed tone. "That is Vilya."

"It is indeed," Elrond commended him. "And I have used Vilya's power to help make our home safe.  An evil power would be hard pressed to enter, and even if one should, Lord Glorfindel and I are more than a match for it."

There was a hint of a smile on Elladan's face and Elrohir had visibly relaxed.

"Will you sleep now?"

"Yes _Ada_, we will," Elrohir replied, with Elladan nodding his agreement.

Elrond tucked both boys in again, and reached for the candle.  He picked it up and set it on a table on the opposite side of the room from where the twins slept.

"Just in case," he said, and the twins smiled. "Good night my sons."

"Good night, _Ada_," they chorused.

Elrond shut the door with a sigh of relief and walked along the terrace until he came to the balcony overlooking the garden where Lord Glorfindel customarily waited to greet the stars.

"Ah, my lord Elrond," said Glorfindel by way of greeting. "Have the twins been successfully put to bed?"

"Yes my lord, as a matter of fact they have," replied Elrond making no effort to disguise his facetious tone.  "They told me the most remarkable story about a daemon that would come at them through the fire in candle light.  They were quite terrified."

Glorfindel looked abashed.

"I understand my lord," Elrond continued. "That you have little experience with children, but perhaps I might recommend that in the future, you leave certain tales untold until some level of maturity has been reached?"

"I am sorry, mellon nin," Glorfindel said. "But they do so like adventure stories, and so I told them of the most adventurous adventure I have ever had."

"I am sure it was a wonderful story.  But you might have been better served to hold off the telling of it for another decade or so."

"I did not think." Glorfindel paused and then commented reflectively. "Still, it did keep them quiet last night.  And they spent the whole day asking me questions, which kept them nicely out from underfoot."

"That is true, mellon nin." Elrond conceded.  "Maybe it was not such a bad story after all."

"Tomorrow I shall tell them what you and Elros did after Gil-galad told you about Ungoliant."

"My lord, you will do nothing of the sort."

The Elven lords laughed in the night, and the twins slept at last.

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AN: This story takes place around TA 140.  I realize that the appendices state that "the guardianship of the Three Rings was known only to those who possessed them", but I needed Elrond to tell the twins.  A thousand pardons.


End file.
